If you haven’t seen The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming, I encourage you to give it a watch. It’s a madcap comedy from 1966 that, thanks to Putin’s illegal and disgusting invasion of Ukraine, has almost as much political relevance today as it did when it was released.

The plot involves a Russian submarine accidentally running aground on US soil, resulting in misunderstandings and a bit of mayhem. In my case I was planning to very un-accidentally land in Russia and intentionally create a little mayhem with my fellow spies Jim and Joe in order to straighten out that Putiny nincompoop once and for all.

My first order of business was to create a disguise. As you can see here, I transformed myself into a Russian military officer; officially, Polkovnik (which means “Colonel”) Boris Gleb of the Russian Armed Forces. Combined with the ever-blooming beard I grew for the Norwegian cold, you can see that I was barely recognizable. Yes, that’s really me! Also, I thanked my lucky stars that I took that nine week elective Russian language course in the 7th grade. At the time I had no idea that I’d have to remember all of it 50 years later just so I could sneak into Russia and give Putin a spanking he’d never forget.

The first sign we encountered quickened my pulse, because I knew I wasn’t going to follow any of their stinkin’ rules. I looked for separate signs that would specifically cover the rules for spies, but since there were none, I got the message loud and clear: bring it on dude.

Oh I’ll be so bringin’ it on, Mr. Dude-tin, so much so that even your ears’ll be bringing, or um, ringing. Yeah, you, Mr. Pute-butt, Mr. Stupid Invasioner guy with a turdy face and bad breath! I’m coming for you, you Stalin-lovin’ pile of unwashed socks! And I’ll make my wife fart in your general direction while I do! Plus, your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

The tour actually took us to two different border crossings, which was a big help in terms of how I was going to sneak in. With two crossings to watch, that means Russia would have only half the manpower at each. My confidence grew! I scoffed at the “It is illegal to cross the border” threats. By the way, do you know what the difference between unlawful and illegal is? Unlawful is when something is against the statutes passed by the governing body of the terrority, and illegal is just a sick bird. And no sick bird was gonna keep me from my mission! Polkovnik Boris Gleb was on his way!

These are the official border markers. What I wanted to know is who actually owns the land between the markers. The border between Norway and Russia is just under 200 kilometers long. I’d say there’s about a two meter separation between those posts. Meaning that there are 400 total kilometers of land that essentially no one’s claiming. Accordingly, before I left, I had the green sign produced and declared the strip of land Andersonvilletonland, a free nation. Sure, maybe it has no residents to speak of, but we do have a couple of very handsome reindeer, a can-do attitude, yellow snow exports, and designs on constructing our own nuclear arsenal, at least as soon as Amazon.nk delivers the do-it-yourself nuclear bomb kit I ordered.

Long live Andersonvilletonland! I’m working on an anthem as we speak.

This is the main border crossing. If it looks somewhat abandoned, it may have something to do with a little thing called genocide currently being committed by Ptooey-tin. Despite that, Russia and Norway did reach an agreement to allow certain crossings of the border, by fishermen and families, for instance. But Norway did tell Russia in no uncertain terms that if they drive up in an old pick-up with a nuclear missile strapped to the bed and a fuse dangling from the back with Wile E. Coyote holding a match nearby, they will be very annoyed, and will place an immediate call to the CEO of Acme.

I had Tim and Susan pose for some pictures in order to distract the Russian surveillance team. I knew that watch tower on the hill was tracking our every move, but there’s no way they could see anything else except that yellow coat when looking through their viewfinders. In the tradecraft, we call that Yellow-Coat-Blindness. Yes, it’s a thing. Look it up. Page 231, second paragraph down, smack dab in the CIA Spy Handbook, actually written by Jim and Joe themselves!

I saw nothing in these rules that said anything about my fellow spies Jim and Joe or impersonating a military officer, so the plan was getting nothing but green lights at this point.

I know these photos may look like boring pictures of just a sign and scenery, but due to my extensive CIA training, I am actually in each photo. Believe it or don’t! I planned to use my stealth skills to tiptoe, as Elmer Fudd used to say, “evah so quietry,” across the border where I’d then find a turbo-charged Lada Granta sedan filled with weapons, leather spanking paddles, and a bribery cache consisting of ten cases of Reese’s Pieces, fifty vodka-infused peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, and twelve dozen “The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming” DVDs. Young Russian men never seem to look past the titles.

But remember when I said my alias was Polkovnik Boris Gleb? As you can see below, I was astonished to discover that somehow, some way, Russia was on to me:

Because here on the fence they had posted an obvious warning, essentially saying, “Boris Gleb, we know who and where you are.” I was absolutely gobsmacked.

This is how I look when I’m gobsmacked. It ain’t pretty.

So, I sent Jim and Joe off without me. Honestly, I was a little relieved in that now I could finish up the cruise without having to dodge shoulder-mounted missiles on a motorcycle as I zoom through the streets of Moscow while going down multiple staircases and driving through middle eastern spice markets and then race around and around the top of several Russian onion domes while being responsible for at least a dozen separate car crashes as I dodge something like 50,000 bullets and slightly muss up the little hair I have left in the process. They say movies are just, y’know, all Hollywood, but they’re hiding everything in plain sight I tell you. Anyway, I can’t describe what Jim and Joe actually did because the CIA would put a bullet in my brain, and worse, refuse to take it back out.

We ended the tour with a visit to a small gift shop being patrolled by this fearsome guard dog. The truth is that he was actually starved for affection, so I spent the next fifteen minutes petting him and rubbing his belly and otherwise just being totally smitten with this overabundance of cuteness.

The gift shop was literally just as big as you see here, just one small room filled to the brim with souvenirs and Russian things made in China.

My two favorite items were these Commemorative Dictator Mugs and their companion look-alike figurines. Carolyn thought I Photoshopped the mugs, but no, this is what they were actually offering. Russia may be the only other country in the world where a significant percentage of the population actually likes Donald Trump.

As we left the border area, we snapped these final scenic pictures. While Carolyn and I had some discussions about possibly visiting Russia before they invaded Ukraine, this clearly is the closest we’re ever going to get to it now. I will say I got a small kick out of my iPhone automatically switching to Russian time when I got close enough to the border, which was I think two hours different than Norwegian time. So at least I can say I was close enough to Russia to have my clock switch to their time. I hope I didn’t get infected with some sort of KGB virus.

The final chapter of the Jim and Joe saga is this: when my two sons were young, I used to tell them a bedtime story pretty much every night. My two main characters were Jim and Joe, who were both fellow spies and a sort of comedy duo. I started a good many of the tales with an intro of Jim saying to Joe, “What do you want to do?” And Joe replies, “I don’t know what do you want to do?” And Jim replies, “I don’t know what do you want to do?” And Joe replies, “I don’t know– now cut that out!” I stole that from a cartoon, but the boys always seemed to get a kick out of it, even after the 500th time. (The truth is that I used that intro line to try and delay things while I came up with a story. Sometimes the back and forth “what-do-you-want-to-do’s” hit the double digits as I wracked my brain for a new adventure.)

After hundreds of adventure/spy stories, I really began to struggle to come up with new exploits, and of course as most childhood things do, the stories eventually drifted away into oblivion. Until I discovered that my oldest son has actually been telling his son his own version of the Jim and Joe stories. I was flattered and touched, but also amazed that this tiny legacy I thought had all but been forgotten has actually been passed down to my grandson, and perhaps even beyond. So if in the year 2086 a new hit TV series about the adventures of Jim and Joe hits it big, you’ll know where it all started. And I want my descendents to get royalties!

And so we left Russia to the Russians and returned to our lovely ship for the return voyage.

And here are nine more views from the ship to wrap this entry up:

(Scroll down to see previous entries.)